


Woolgathering

by teasmudge



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Arcane Notions, Call Me By Your Name AU, Fanciful Interpretation of Philosophical Theory, Fleeting Feelings of Rightness, Inconsequential Flirtation, M/M, Poetic Kerfuffle, Pretentious Sexual Tension, Romance, and sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teasmudge/pseuds/teasmudge
Summary: The forever smell of those hot, rosemary evenings.The fruits from his home’s peach tree, each blushing with shame.The very sky from which he was named after.All of it had turned, as spring does to summer, acquiring an inflection of colour that could only be known as Sebastian.
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44
Collections: Kuroshitsuji





	Woolgathering

**Author's Note:**

> Greatly Inspired by André Aciman's Call Me By Your Name

In the distance, a pair of cypress trees interrupted the seemingly endless view of wheat, one taller than the other. They stuck out at the base of that familiar hill-side, and if Ciel squinted he could see something that looked like his house and all the other adjoining villas, the one where his cousin lived, and the Kadar family’s, and so on, entirely surrounded by lush greenery. Farther still, the sparkling water of the Ligurian Sea.

The walk home was long enough for the sun to kiss traces of warmth into his skin. He blew his fringe away from his face, it really was very sunny, delighting in the freshness of the cherries he just picked up from the market. Firm and ripe, packaged in a paper bowl, making his hands sticky with how many he’d eaten. At home, a book he already read awaited him patiently, and even though he misplaced the grocery list that Paula had sent him off with, it was a beautiful day. 

A lonely pipit cocked its head at Ciel as he passed. Gladly chirping, none the wiser, perched atop the gateway leading to the tree-lined driveway of Ciel’s home. It flew away no sooner, disturbed by a taxicab pulling up the driveway.

Ciel had nearly made it up the steps to the front door on that one beautiful day, during that one beautiful summer, when a tall man stepped out of the cab. Dark eyes, sleeves rolled into his forearm, darker hair, sharp everything.

Was  _ he _ due to arrive already? Ciel pretended like it didn’t matter either way, whether he knew or not, and approached the man with a hospitable smile. Like a proper host should, just how his mother had taught him. 

The man shook Ciel’s hand and looked straight at him, eyes briefly darting all over Ciel’s face before quite rudely fixating on his mouth. 

Audacious. 

Ciel could feel his gaze as it ran down the outline of his shoulder, more blistering than the sun, down to the bag of fruit he carried in his opposite hand. The one that wasn’t being held by their handshake. He looked back up at Ciel and grinned. 

Conceited.

The man had no right being that intimidating. It made Ciel unbearably aware of himself. He felt the urge to reach up and fix his shirt from the way it fell off his shoulder. To bristle. To tuck his hair away from his face. Maybe that would soothe the hot, pulsing feeling ringing in his ears. He wouldn’t, however, do any of that, because he was a tactful young adult who was more than capable of greeting a guest. And much too proud to ever let himself look feeble in front of an older man, wasn’t he?

“Hello there, is your father home?” 

Yes, he was home, and why was he looking at Ciel like that? Mean, purposeful, wide. He turned to grab his suitcase from the trunk of the cab. The sudden lack of eye-contact made Ciel feel as though he could breathe again. 

Intense. 

Despite a day's worth of travel, not a thing about the man was out of place except for a warm, almost-pink splotch of sweaty skin at the base of his neck. 

Ciel wiped his shirt sleeve over his face to stop himself from staring. He lowered his sleeve only to realize, with great clarity, that his sleeve had come away stained with cherry, and it was why the man had been looking at his mouth, because his mouth had definitely been smudged with it. All over, in such a feeble way, probably. 

Ridiculous. 

So much for that. Some tact. Commendable, really.

The man paid the cab driver almost as handsomely as he smiled at him. Differently than he had at Ciel, less mocking, the prick. That toothy mouth. That tap on the roof of the cab. That keep-the-change-attitude. Barf, vomit, gross. Ciel hated him. 

  
  


Each summer Ciel’s parents took in a houseguest as a way of helping young academics revise their dissertations. They’d stay in the room right next to Ciel’s for the entirety of six whole weeks. Summer residents were treated like family, they didn’t have to pay anything for room and board, so long as they spent an hour here and a morning there helping Ciel’s father with correspondence and paperwork and run-of-the-mill intern to the professor who got to live at his house for a while type of things. 

It was as Ciel’s father would always say, Your house is my house. They’d become part of the family, all who’d come and none who’d stay. Ciel was used to it. His parents had been doing it for the greater half of a decade, acquainted to all sorts of letters and postcard niceties throughout the year and years. 

They all kept in touch, some way or another.

Some would even visit for a day or two  _ in vacanza _ , on holiday, eager to gush about a particular sort of nostalgia that only the Phantomhive home could provide.

Ciel grew up thinking it normal, accustomed to the way his parents had always enjoyed the feeling of a full house. They often had one, two, sometimes more than three guests over for dinner. Other colleagues, neighbours, friends of friends, passing tourists or relatives. Sometimes doctors, poets, lawyers, people that had been drawn to the charming villa with its charming hosts and wanted nothing more than to drink and eat and flip flop between languages and books and art with Professor Phantomhive and his family. 

Perhaps it started that very first evening at dinner, that inkling of a feeling, that nag of all nags. The table had been discussing Plato’s Symposium over  _ il dolce _ and a particularly potent bottle of grappa. Ciel liked the taste of it, like caramel and gasoline, loose on his tongue. 

“It’s a personification of love, love desires and therefore,” Ciel didn’t even blink, “love needs. It means that love is not perfectly beautiful and whole, and it can’t be, can it?” like he didn’t care if it was fanciful or not. “Because it desires beautiful things. So love is like a philosopher,” Ciel explained. “The sweet spot between wisdom and ignorance.”

That summer Ciel was seventeen. He spoke in turn for a teenager, rarely speaking, mostly polite. He considered himself an observer--as though he were used to dinners such as these. People such as these. Lives such as these. That was until passion overtook him, could be anything, and all would turn with speculation to that quiet child like flowers to the sun. 

It was well said. The table drank to it, the richness of conversation that lay thick in everyone’s throats. His father smiled at him. Just as the topic flowed from love to the love of Ancient Greece, to the love and hate of Europe entirely, to anything and everything else, Ciel felt the prickle of a look, burning a red-sized hole into his cheek.

He was being stared at. Intently.

When finally, because he had taken his time about it, Ciel looked in front of himself to face that which beckoned him, he was met with the most indignant slant of eyes he had ever seen. Maroon in the light of the dining room, almost blooming. Meaner than earlier by the front door, sharper too. 

Ciel had never before felt so provoked.

  
  


Maybe it started the day after, when Ciel, as dutiful hosts do, took the man on a tour of the area. 

“Show Sebastian around, won’t you?” his father asked very nicely, a funny look on his face. 

Sebastian.

Ciel took him to the veranda and the orchard, passed the tennis court, the pool, the atelier, out the back and further still through the rusted, rarely-used gate to the limitless grass, the roll of the hill-side, the view of the sea, eternity. 

“What could this be?” Sebastian asked, amazed, watching Ciel climb atop a great-big slab of half-carved marble. 

Ciel wondered if  _ this _ was fondness.

“My grandmother was a sculptor,” as if that explained everything. The lone statue in a field of grass. The reason why Ciel took him there. The weirdness of someone new.

“She started it,” he traced the ridges of the marble horse’s long mane, “and never finished. After she died, my mother moved it here so it could be with the sea.”

Sebastian looked at Ciel who was looking at him. “It’s beautiful,” he said. And he didn’t ask for more. For more than just that. The story of the horse, and how Ciel chose to tell it.

“Would you like to see the beach?” 

_ No _ , he said. Just when Ciel thought he might've actually been enjoying him.  _ Maybe later _ , he said. Short, curt, cold. It hurt Ciel. How temperamental. Did Sebastian not like the thought of them going there together? Should Ciel shuck off his metaphorical tour-guide hat, maybe throw it to the sea, the one Sebastian didn’t want to go to? 

That was fine, anyway, it wasn’t as though the water was begging to know him, either. 

Instead, he asked Ciel if he could take him to his Italian translator who apparently had an office somewhere in town, and he didn’t know the way, and he looked almost flustered about it, the trepidation! And he’d gladly appreciate the direction. 

Warm again. Ciel agreed as fast as the return of a boomerang, the call of the sea forgotten. He’d take him there by bike. 

Oh, the reappearance of that toothy smile, “And will you be pegging me around town?”

No, of course not, Sebastian could use the spare bike. Was he serious? What a fucking tool, Ciel thought, already readjusting his tour-guide hat.

They stopped at an ice cream shop along the way for a break from the heat and sat under an umbrella at one of the tables outside. Ciel asked for two scoops of melon sorbet. Sebastian asked for a bottle of water. 

It was so hot it felt like a daydream. The swooshing of warm air. The slap of their shoes on pavement. The odd angle of the umbrella, doing nothing to filter the sun from Sebastian’s face.

Sebastian took a large gulp of water and passed the bottle to Ciel, “It’s very hot, have some.” 

Ciel sipped it gingerly, not because he was told to by someone older, but because he was a little thirsty, actually, now that Sebastian had mentioned it. He passed it back to Sebastian and watched him drink from it again. 

“Wanna try some?” it was only fair that Ciel offered some of his sorbet. Common courtesy was all.

“That’s alright,” he smiled, “I tasted it on the lip of the bottle.”

Brief eye-contact. During the day, Sebastian’s eyes were a flinty brown. They caught fire in the sunlight. Ciel looked away. But if he chanced a peak, would Sebastian still be looking at him like that? Ciel kind of hoped he might be, in the same way that a schoolgirl might want to be stared at while not wanting to be stared at. 

Who was he kidding? 

Certainly not Sebastian, who leaned back in his chair, seemingly undisturbed, unperturbed, nodding hello to a passing stranger, to anything that wasn’t Ciel’s stupidly pink face. 

Ciel watched from the corner of his eye as Sebastian took some water into his hand and ran it through his hair. Dumb. Insufferable. Cocky.  _ Do it again _ .

“What does one do around here?”

“Anything they want?” Ciel liked being cheeky.

“Is that so?” Sebastian paused. “What do  _ you _ do around here?”

Ciel licked into his sorbet, “Not much. Read. Play piano. Transcribe piano. Swim. Wait for winter.”

Sebastian watched him swallow it, “And you eat Melon Sorbet.”

Ciel quipped, “And I eat Melon Sorbet.”

“So what do you do in the winter?”

Ciel smirked but didn’t respond, tongue to cheek.

Sebastian’s knowing smile made Ciel smile. “Let me guess,” Sebastian guessed, “wait for summer?” 

Ciel laughed, turned out it was rather funny, having his mind read.

Later that day Ciel agonized in his room, playing over their conversation over and over, turning it, flicking it, hating it. 

Reading, he told Sebastian that he liked to read. Sebastian was nearly, practically, basically, a Professor himself, he had just finished writing a book on Heraclitus, for Christ’s sake. 

Ciel buried his head under his pillow. Why hadn’t he said something smarter? He flipped the pillow over. Actually, why did he find himself even wanting to have said something smarter, anyway? The answer to that question was more embarrassing than anything else in the entire world. He flipped the pillow over again. Because he wanted Sebastian to think him interesting. Because he wanted Sebastian to be interested in him. To like him, even. And would he admit it, the pitiful fool? 

Not ever.

  
  


Or it might have started before and after either of them knew, not noticing until that was the only thing left to do.

Or on one of those sun-swept mornings, Sebastian by the pool, book over his face, lounging, tanning, sweating. Ciel at the table, writing music, reading, staring at the uncouth line of Sebastian’s swim shorts, whatever. 

Or in the late afternoon, the smell of brewing coffee and the sound of trees. Bodies everywhere, sprawled on the couch, too hot to breathe, too comfortable to try. 

Or on the tennis court, between a round of doubles when everyone stopped to drink at least one glass of Paula’s lemonade and Sebastian reached over and wrapped his arm around Ciel’s back--as tennis partners and buds do--and worked his thumb into the dip of his shoulder blade. 

“You’re tense,” he told Ciel. 

Ciel had never detested anything more, a second longer and he might have melted like butter directly onto the palm of Sebastian’s hand. He pushed away from the touch immediately. 

But Sebastian pulled him back, all handsy, “I’m about to become a Doctor you know, you should trust me.”

“I’m fine.” 

“You should relax more.”

As if, “I’m perfectly relaxed.”

“Here, let me make it better.” He said it,  _ that _ , in front of the others, his own friends, and began to massage Ciel’s shoulders. 

In what world would Ciel be expected to deal with this absurdity of a man in front of other people? He shouldn’t have invited Sebastian to play. His face must have looked bored so as not to look absolutely mortified, bordering on some sort of tight-lipped annoyance for something else entirely; the art of concealing how like butter he truly was. Unhinged timidity. It was probably why Ciel had been in the habit of looking away whenever Sebastian looked at him. At dinner. On the marble horse. At the ice cream shop. 

Longing. Was it why people said  _ no _ when they meant  _ yes _ ? Was it why people pushed away, just so they could be pulled back? Was it the reason for Sebastian’s  _ later _ ? Were they really so alike, Sebastian and Ciel, like two parallel lines running opposite one another in the same direction? Was Sebastian like Ciel, when all he really ever meant was, Please, do it again, and do it once more after that?

Ciel took it to the cool side of his pillow that afternoon: did he desire Sebastian, or did he simply want to be Sebastian? Tall, great shoulders, broad too. Would they have knots in them, or were they as relaxed as Sebastian had told him to be during doubles? 

His long legs, his skin that made stone look soft. Those white tennis shorts. The ones that promised the scent of legs and skin and sweat. 

Ciel fiddled with the double buttons of his own jean shorts. He pictured Sebastian coming into his room right then and there and undoing his buttons without even asking. He'd mount Ciel. He’d pull down his clothes, off, off, he’d want all of it off. 

Please, don’t hurt me, Ciel would beg, which really meant, Hurt me at your leisure. And Sebastian would coo and have his way with him. 

You need to relax, he’d say. He imagined Sebastian’s face nuzzled between his legs, nose snuggled into the groove of his thigh. Let me help, he’d demand. He’d suck it. Unkindly. And he’d lick and bite and kiss and slather. 

Ciel would come in his mouth. 

A single knock at the door disturbed Ciel from his musings. Ciel barely had enough time to tuck himself back into his jeans before Sebastian walked into his room and lazily rolled his eyes over his sprawled out body on the bed. 

Tussled sheets, tousled hair, could Sebastian tell that his shorts were unbuttoned? He hoped not. Ciel tried as hard, literally, as he possibly could not to scream in embarrassment. 

Sebastian ran his fingers through his hair, “Let’s go for a jog.” 

“M’ sleepy,” Ciel muffled into his pillow to not appear out of breath.

“A swim then.” He sounded angry. Appeared to be too. Kept fisting at his hair.

“Maybe later.” 

_ Ha! How do you like the taste of your own medicine, Sebastian? Screw you and your stupid hair. _

In comradery, Sebastian got close enough to offer his hand to Ciel. “Let’s go right now,” he said.

Ciel wondered if Sebastian could smell the evidence of his shame. Warm. Permeating through the bed. The shorts. The air.

“Must we?” which really meant,  _ Do you know how hard I am right now? Let’s stay here. Put that hand in my shorts, and if you don’t I’ll do it for you. I promise I won’t tell my father. Just stay here with me, Sebastian, and I'll let you press your fingers inside of me. _

Ciel stared at Sebastian’s outstretched hand.

When he didn’t take it, he told Ciel he’d meet him downstairs and left. Once Ciel was alone again, he slapped himself. 

How could he ever look this man in the face again? He’d simply die if he had to. That wasn’t true though, and he knew it, the hard cock between his thighs told him otherwise. 

Sebastian was someone you couldn’t (shouldn’t) look at but had to look at so you could figure out why you couldn’t look in the first place. Stare too long, though, and you’d be stuck staring.

Reluctantly, Ciel changed into his swim trunks and stuffed the delicious ache of his denial down its seam, Maybe later?

  
  


Maybe it started that very next day when Ciel had been practising guitar in the courtyard and Sebastian had been lounging on a nearby divan, so close by. 

Ciel could feel it before he raised his head from the guitar strings. Those eyes. He wanted to see if Sebastian had liked what he just played and there it was, again. Wicked, searing, like a predator in wait. To say that Ciel had been irrevocably undone by such a gaze would have been an understatement. Sebastian presented him with a watery smile that did nothing to soothe the sting from his eyes. Shameless, as though he had nothing to hide despite being caught staring. Blatantly. 

“Was that Schubert’s Serenade?” he asked Ciel.

“As transcribed by me.”

“Isn’t it supposed to be sung in the morning?” 

Didn’t Sebastian know it was never safe to bring up Shakespeare? It made Ciel’s head go light at the mention. Did Sebastian wish him to sing an aubade? Because he might. 

_Boldness, be my friend! Arm me with audacity from head to foot!_ _(1)_

Ciel pinkened, still frazzled by the eyes, the intensity, the everything. To speak or to die. Was he expected to be insightful? Wit after that was simply unheard of. Perhaps Sebastian wanted to discuss Cymbeline. Or was he supposed to be honest,  _ It’s morning wherever you are, Sebastian. _

“Forget I asked” was Sebastian’s way of serving him some slack. “Just play it again.”

A breath, “Again? I thought you hated it.”

“You thought I hated it.” Not a question, just that funny thing they had gotten in the habit of doing. It was keen. The way they repeated each other’s words. A giddy sort of gesture, almost like a touch or a caress.

_ Yes, you outrageous man _ , “I thought you hated it.”  _ I thought you hated me _ .

“What gave you that impression?” asked Sebastian.

The eyes, definitely.

“Just play it again.”

Ciel even liked the way they bickered.

“The one I just played?” And mutely, never to be heard, on the tip of his tongue,  _ Did you know I came in your mouth last night? _

Sebastian nodded.

Ciel stood up, smirking to himself, and walked into the house. Somehow, Sebastian knew to follow him. In the drawing room, Ciel sat at the piano and began to play.

Sebastian leaned up against the doorway between inside and outside and listened. 

Billowy shirt. Tanned skin. Long legs. 

Ciel wondered if Sebastian was watching him play as intently as he had been before. What would he think of his pianist’s form? Could he see the movement of Ciel’s back, undulating just so? 

“It’s different, what did you do to it?”

“I just played it the way Litz would have played it,” he pricked, smiling at Sebastian over the lid of the piano. “Don’t you know your piano literature?”

“Play it the way you played it outside.”

“Ah, you want me to play it the way I played it outside?” 

“Yes,” Sebastian laughed as though he liked it. The brand of Ciel’s sarcasm.

Ciel continued to play.

Then, “I can’t believe you changed it again.”

“Well, not really. I just played it the way Horowitz would have played had he altered Litz’s version of the solo.”

There they were again, those mean, terrible eyes, “Incredulous.”

Ciel played again, this time properly, hopelessly, gladly, how Sebastian had wanted it the first time he asked. Rather deftly, Ciel came to realize that he very much liked to make Sebastian work for it.

Just the same, as if to the melody, Ciel desired to know if Sebastian knew just how effortless and beautiful Ciel played the piano. Because he knew he did. He was proud of it.

Nimble fingers, soft neck, closed eyes, Schubert’s Serenade. 

Ciel had really dedicated it to Sebastian,

_as a token of something very beautiful in [him] that would take no genius to figure out and that urged [him] to throw in an extended cadenza. Just for him._ _(2)_

  
  
  


In the summer, Paula served breakfast on the veranda every morning. It was Ciel’s favourite meal. Much quieter than the drudge of dinner, with its many guests. More quaint. Less frou-frou. Unlike dinner, breakfast was the same each day. His father with his reading glasses, the newspaper, and  _ caffè espresso _ . His mother with her sugar-sprinkled fruit, mainly papaya, and a sketchbook.

It was during one of Sebastian’s first mornings at the house, when everyone sat together for breakfast on the veranda, that Paula offered him some  _ succo fresco _ . He told her he would very much like some, please, probably expecting something of the orange variety, maybe some lemonade, but then Paula served him a thick, globby glass of peach juice, of which he’d never before had. Ciel watched him tip the glass back and drink. And drink. 

That long, bobbing throat.

Everyone laughed, including Ciel, who didn’t laugh much, at the prominent line of peach juice lining Sebastian’s upper lip. But it was only Ciel that lingered a bit longer, paying close attention to the way he licked himself clean. 

Once he finished, his lips smackled with it, “Incredibile,” he said in his little accent, the only thing imperfect about him. 

Paula swooned, all at once won over. She had a glass ready every morning since, just for him.

Sebastian was especially happy to know that the orchard grew peaches. When there was nothing to do in the house Paula would hand him a basket and a step ladder and send him peach picking. 

_ Pick those fruits that were almost blushing with shame, she said. He would joke in Italian, pick one out, and ask, Is this one blushing with shame? No, she would say, this one is too young still, youth has no shame, shame comes with age. (3) _

Ciel, under the pretence of doing anything else, watched Sebastian climb and lean and reach for the peaches on the peachtree. Ingrained into Ciel’s memory was the sharp (because Sebastian was never unsharp), indecent arch of his back and his rounded ass, a mimic of the dimpled fruit, stretched tautly underneath his swim trunks. 

It was because Sebastian enjoyed the juice so much that Ciel’s father, with great exuberance, told the story, or so it went, of the Chinese peaches of immortality. The story he told each summer. To each summer guest. 

Ciel and his mother--who were otherwise nonchalant--shared an excited look from their seats at the table. Ciel liked their Phantomhive secrets. They always got him through particularly obnoxious dinners. He thought about walking over and whispering a hint into Sebastian’s ear, but he wasn’t that merciful, and that would ruin the fun, and he was curious to see how Sebastian might fare.

“The peaches of immortality are believed to grant everlasting youth. They grow on goddess Xiwangmu’s enchanted garden, atop the great Mountain of Kunlun in an abode known as the Jade Pool. They only ripen once a millennium, and whenever they do, the goddess throws a banquet in celebration of their bloom.” Vincent took his wife’s hand and kissed it, “Where Gods go to feast on the fruits of eternity to their heart’s content.”

The sun poured over the table, the tale, and the Phantomhive tradition in a slow, syrupy dissolve. 

Vincent lifted his finger in telling, “It is said that only one mortal has ever tasted the fruit.”

Ciel wouldn’t dare look Sebastian in the face for fear of ruining the moment. Even though he really, really wanted to. 

“An Emperor no less,” Vincent went on, “Emperor Wu of Han. The goddess bestowed upon him several peaches. As the myth goes, the Emperor treasured his gift so greatly that he preserved their precious stones and turned them into a talisman meant to ward off the evil spirits of old.” 

When he finished the story, Ciel felt inclined to clap at his father’s performance. He turned to his mother and smiled. 

But Sebastian begged to differ, “The emperor wasn’t the only mortal believed to have eaten the fruit.”

“Ah?” Ciel’s father mused, loving nothing more. “Is that so?”

Dauntless but not impolite, “It is.”

“If myth is anything to go by, King Mu of Zhou was the first mortal to have tasted eternity. 

“The King climbed Kunlun Mountain, where he met goddess Xiwangmu. Baffled, or perhaps,” he grinned, every bit the storyteller, “even a little amused by the mortal’s ability to traverse the heavenly mountain, welcomed him into her garden. The King spent some time with her. 

“A night, a week, a  _ summer _ ,” Ciel would never forget how he said it, “it was unknown, the passing of time was unfamiliar in the Jade Pool. She served him peaches and wine. Eventually, he left her and returned home.” 

“It is said that  _ later _ , when he changed his mind and tried to return to her, he couldn’t. No matter how far he climbed or sought, he could no longer find the Jade Pool. Some say his spirit still searches.”

“How  _ vezzoso _ , Sebastian!” Ciel’s mother pet his cheek. 

Ciel’s father smiled at him gladly, “Flying colours.” 

Sebastian’s mouth spread into a knowing smirk, finally let into the secret. Sebastian seemed to know the right amount of everything. Even his father’s trick questions. Ciel felt oddly proud of that, for some reason. 

Sebastian chanced a glance at Ciel who had already been looking at him. Ciel didn’t feel embarrassed by it, more familiar than ever, because it was payback for dinner on the first night. And the cherry mouth incident too. 

So what if he wanted to see Sebastian sweat a little? 

Sebastian acknowledged him charmingly, the whole: I know that you know that I know you’re impressed sort of nod. And maybe, the slightest twinge of pink, or was that blush a trick of the morning’s light?

A call from his translator excused Sebastian from the table.

“How do you like him?” Ciel’s father asked him once Sebastian was out of ear-shot. His mother leaned in, she wanted to know too.

“Who?” casual, nothing out of the ordinary. 

That funny look again, “Sebastian. Who else?”

“Oh. He’s okay, as far as summer residents go.” Was he being nonchalant enough?

“Do you like him?” tactful, like how a father asks his son about his first day of school. 

“I suppose,” he sighed, playing melodrama.

Everyone liked Sebastian, it’s why Ciel didn’t feel out of place, there was a weird sort of comfort in knowing that other people couldn’t help but like him either. 

“I think he likes you too.” 

  
  


From time to time Sebastian sequestered himself to the atelier where he would watch Ciel’s mother paint. Said it was relaxing. Which it was, Ciel knew from experience. Rachel didn’t mind, of course, forever happy to discuss various brushes and oily pigments over a pitcher of sangria with anyone who would listen. 

As someone who craved to be indulged Ciel rather liked how Sebastian was more than eager to listen to any one person speak on their passions. Paula and her juice, the gardener and his peaches, guests and their travel, neighbours and their homes, and if inclined, would he consider visiting them for dinner sometime that week?

Of course he would. 

Sebastian had time for anyone and everything. And Ciel, who had wanted nothing more than to keep that childlike twinkle in his eye to himself, had never felt the need to be the centre of anyone’s attention before Sebastian. And the way he spoke. And stared. And wore his shirt just right. 

But Rachel wasn’t painting when Sebastian peered his head through the atelier’s open doors. She sat next to Ciel, shoulder to shoulder, the both of them crunched over a wet pottery wheel, smiling, hands filthy with clay. Sebastian’s presence made Ciel instantly self-conscious. 

“Sebastian!” called Rachel. “Join us.” 

Sebastian smiled at her and settled into his usual spot, the cushion at the window sill.

Ciel looked down at himself. Upon a closer, terser inspection, he noticed several smatters of terracotta messy-ing his stomach. A warm washcloth could wipe it all off. He pictured a big, rough hand scrubbing at his skin and immediately regretted not pulling a smock over his chest. 

Rachel smiled back, “Ciel was just sabotaging my vase, isn’t that right?” she turned to face her son. “My little troublemaker.” 

Ciel loved his mother, anybody could tell, they shared the same pink in their cheeks. He scooped at the clay and brought some into his hand, “I’m making it look better.” 

She gave him a look, and just as unruly, dipped her finger in the puddle of clay and dotted Ciel’s nose with it. Ciel giggled as though Sebastian weren’t there. Soft, full, loud, like a Mamma’s boy. He booped her back, right on the chin. Her head tipped back in laughter as she pulled Ciel in for a sideways hug. Rachel’s bright hilarity was infectious, it made Sebastian laugh too. 

Troublemaker, she mouthed the word to Sebastian when she thought Ciel couldn't see. “Would you like to try?” she gestured fondly to the wheel.

“I don’t know how,” he told her.

“That’s alright,” she clapped as she stood, wiping her hands on her smock, “Ciel will show you, won’t you,  _ vita mia _ ? Go ahead and finish this one with Sebastian. I have to check on lunch with Paula, we’re having Mr Rathbone over today.” 

Ciel made a face.

“Don’t give me that look!” she laughed knowingly. “He’s a lovely man and your father’s colleague… So behave, won’t you?” she kissed his head, smiled a see-what-I-have-to-deal-with smile at Sebastian, and left the atelier. 

There was a long stretch of silence. Sebastian looked out the window. Ciel looked at his hands. Outside, the trees shook with summer. Inside, Ciel tried not to blush as he gingerly patted at the empty stool beside him, “Well... D-do you want to learn or not?”

Sebastian sat down beside him like a silhouette, “I thought you’d never ask.” 

Their knees touched. It couldn’t be helped, the stools were pushed too close together and Sebastian’s legs were thick. Long.

“Uhm. Right... So, wet your hands in here,” Ciel pointed to the pot of water at their feet. “And then you kinda,” he properly anchored his elbows to his hips. 

Sebastian tried to copy the movement. 

No, Ciel shook his head, not like that, and grabbed Sebastian by the forearm to position him, “Like this. Get closer, it’s not going to bite you.”

“Like this?” he smiled faintly. Fondly, even.

“Like that, yes, and now you can start shaping it with your palms,” Ciel showed him, using his thumb to elongate the clay. Ciel felt Sebastian watch him move his fingers. Gently. The ones he used to play piano and strum guitar. Watched him pull and touch at the clay in such a way that created an arch in the vase.

“Now you try,” he pulled away.

Softly, Sebastian brought his hands to the clay. It pooled against his palm, cold to the touch, and if he pressed down a little tighter-- 

“Here,” Ciel clamped his hand over Sebastian’s. “Right hand pushes down,” he guided, “left hand pushes forward.”

“Your hands are so small.”

Ciel dug into the clay between the web of Sebastian’s fingers. “No,” he said, memorising every line and curve. “Your hands are just too big.”

“Hey now,” Sebastian turned to face him, close enough for Ciel to see the faint sweep of a sunburn lining the topples of his hard cheeks. “That’s a little mean, troublemaker.” Rosy, really, but no less intimidating. 

Eye-contact, “Who said I was nice?”

Another long stretch of silence, somehow different than the first. Charged. Outside, the trees still shook with summer, and if Ciel leaned in just the least bit closer--

Sebastian’s head snapped to the window, toward the disquieting crunch of tires on gravel rolling up the driveway. 

Could it be the Grim Reaper, coming to collect Ciel’s mortified soul? 

“Mr Rathbone, please come in!” called the faraway voice of Ciel's mother, greeting the lunch guest from the front steps. 

Not death, just lunch. 

  
  


Ciel figured it a close call, the delusion of that almost thing that happened with Sebastian. But the alter ego of almost was just a tortured version of never, wasn’t it? So maybe it didn’t start in the atelier, and maybe it never started, because maybe it was just wishful thinking. And that was okay with Ciel too, because if it never started, it would never have to end. 

Right?

At lunch, they sat next to each other like nothing happened. Sebastian had that just-showered, wet look going on. Slicked back hair, liquid throat, and an annoyingly billowy shirt, its first few buttons left undone. Did he forget to button them, or did he just not bother, and why, for Christ’s sake, did he always have to look so disgustingly suave?

Ciel could taste Sebastian’s fresh cologne on his tongue. A thick, cardamom bittersweetness. Around them, Ciel’s father told Mr Rathbone about Sebastian’s book on Heraclitus.

Mr Rathbone, who knew a few things about the Presocratics, carried on the conversation with awe. “The name of the bow is life, but its work is death,” he quoted Heraclitus in greek.

“Yes,” joined Sebastian, smiling perfectly.

“This is what he means by unity in opposition, isn’t that right? It’s as he said,” Mr Rathbone switched to greek again, “There is harmony in the tension of opposites, as in the case of the bow and the lyre.”

Sebastian took a sip from his glass of wine. Patient, “What he means to say is that unity exists through the experience of opposition,” he rolled the glass, making the wine swirl. 

“A bow ceases to function if the tension with which it requires is disturbed.” When he set the glass back down, the swirling slowed, “The unity of the bow relies on its ability to create opposition.”

The table watched it come to a stop inside of Sebastian’s glass, “Knowing unity through opposition is itself a unity formed through opposition. This is how Heraclitus describes chaos.”

“Che bello!” Ciel’s mother shot Sebastian a smile, entirely entertained. 

Ciel could tell she liked him. Something uncomfortably warm pricked his insides.

“Yes,” Mr Rathbone blinked. “It is a very thought provoking notion indeed.

Ciel stared at Sebastian for the rest of lunch, unable to unfeel the ghost of his hands on the pads of his fingers. Sebastian was so intimidatingly unapproachable, he wondered if he would ever get to see that soft, never-before-touched-a-pottery-wheel look on his face again. Or would he only get to see those sharp lunchtime eyes? The ones that planted Ciel to his seat. Both seemed impossibly intense. 

Ciel didn’t think he’d ever comprehend Sebastian, and did he even want to? 

It wasn’t until later that Ciel found out just how alike they were. After Mr Rathbone left, Vincent and Sebastian went straight to the office to pour over an archive that needed tending. With nothing else to do but  _ jiboiar _ , Ciel and Rachel tagged along, cosying up on the sofa near Vincent’s desk. 

At some point, they got to talking about Mr Rathbone.

“You know though,” Sebastian began, “I didn’t find him very likeable.”

“Ah?” Vincent said, curious.

“It’s rather easy to spout out memorized quotes of things. You don’t actually have to know what you’re talking about, in that case.” Sebastian spoke honestly and plainly.

Touché.

“So you think he’s a charlatan?”

“I think he likes to talk but hates to listen. I’d say his gobbledygook is even better than his greek.”

Ciel knew that Sebastian was an intelligent person, anyone would. But it was how Sebastian talked about people that Ciel found peculiarly attentive. It didn’t impress Ciel, not necessarily. There was something unusually empathetic about the way he judged Mr Rathbone.

Ciel could tell, just like any other person who thought they could read other people did, that Sebastian was good at noticing shameful things. Deeply human things. Things that he’d perhaps already noticed in himself. How would Sebastian be able to describe these things otherwise? 

Could it be that Sebastian saw something of himself in Mr Rathbone, and could it be, that he didn’t like whatever he saw? 

And how was it that Ciel found himself entirely agreeing with Sebastian’s thoughts and opinions on Mr Rathbone? The answer to that question disturbed him. It sunk like a rock in the pond of Ciel’s mind, sending ripples of thoughts to a spot where nothing and nobody had before been. 

_ Are you like me? Even if you aren’t and even if you are, don’t ever tell me. _

_ But if you are, _

_ Could it be that you see me how I see you? _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (1) Cymbeline: Act 1, Scene 6
> 
> (2) Call me by your Name, pg.13
> 
> (3) Call me by your name, pg.35


End file.
